The chapters in this volume were presented at the July-August 2008 NATO
Advanced Study Institute on Unexploded Ordnance Detection and
Mitigation. The conference was held at the beautiful Il Ciocco resort
near Lucca, in the glorious Tuscany region of northern Italy. For the
ninth time we gathered at this idyllic spot to explore and extend the
reciprocity between mathematics and engineering. The dynamic interaction
between world-renowned scientists from the usually disparate communities
of pure mathematicians and applied scientists which occurred at our
eight previous ASI's continued at this meeting. The detection and
neutralization of unexploded ordnance (UXO) has been of major concern
for very many decades; at least since the First World war. UXO continues
to be the subject of intensive research in many ?elds of science, incl-
ing mathematics, signal processing (mainly radar and sonar) and
chemistry. While today's headlines emphasize the mayhem resulting from
the placement of imp- vised explosive devices (IEDs), humanitarian
landmine clearing continues to draw signi?cant global attention as well.
In many countries of the world, landmines threaten the population and
hinder reconstruction and fast, ef?cient utilization of large areas of
the mined land in the aftermath of military con?icts.